[labnetwork] HF storage

[Hosler, Richard S]

For our RCA process at Purdue/BNC, we have a small (6ft.) dedicated Kinetics RCA cleaning hood with heated below deck level baths for SC1/SC2 and a smaller unheated bath for HF. I have installed a separate cabinet for the HF and HCl adjacent to the hood. This is marked as for RCA only to a) separate the RCA supplies from the main supply and b) to shorten the distance between the cabinet and hood.

The HF is in a smaller semi-opaque white bottle that is easy to determine the level. The HCl bottles are double the size and glass. Each has their own shelf to visually separate them as well. H2O2 goes into a small fridge on the other side of the hood, again to separate the supply and provide quick access.

Access to this hood is restricted by requiring a 2 hour training session in which the user sets up, uses, and cleans up the process from start to finish. Prior HF procedures that are outlined originally in the cleanroom access training are reinforced here and the nearest HF exposure kit (6ft behind the user) is pointed out.

Basically the strategy is a sort of defense-in-depth of individual mistake-proofing features. To my knowledge we haven't had any exposure incidents stemming from this hood in the ~4 years it's been operational.

My catchphrase when working with RCA and Piranha is as follows: "If you ever stop being scared and respectful of these chemicals, you need to  stop working with them."

Rich Hosler
Research Engineer (Thermal/PECVD)
Purdue University - Birck Nanotechnology Center
hosler0 at purdue.edu

From: labnetwork <labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu> On Behalf Of Savitha P
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2023 7:19 AM
To: labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu
Subject: Re: [labnetwork] HF storage

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Hi!

We recently had a couple of occasions where users had mistakenly used Hydrofluoric acid in place of Hydrochloric acid during RCA cleaning. To avoid this, one of the suggestions we have received from our OLSEH is to store HF in a different coloured bottle (currently all acids are stored in white translucent polypropylene bottles which are properly labelled). Accordingly, we had considered storing HF in opaque, brown colour HDPE bottles. However, that was not deemed acceptable by a section of users saying bottles should be translucent so that acid level inside can be judged.

Could you please let me know how small quantities of HF are stored in your respective fabs. Is there any regulation governing storage of HF, so that we could implement the same.

Thanks and regards,
Savitha

Dr. Savitha P
Chief Operating Officer
National Nanofabrication Centre
Centre for Nanoscience and Engineering
Indian Institute of Science
Bangalore - 560012
India.
Ph. +91 80 2293 3319
www.cense.iisc.ac.in<http://www.cense.iisc.ac.in>
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